Alonso Duralde

Spielberg and Kushner clearly revere that history, but they’re also not intimidated by it; there are any number of instances where viewers can point to this song placement or that bit of character backstory as a new idea that the two have brought to the property, but this is a take on “West Side Story” that’s both reverent and exciting.

Varda by Agnès makes a fascinating roadmap to a life and to a career in art, offering inspiration both for viewers and for fellow creators.

It’s a delicate piece of storytelling, one where the poignancy never feels forced and where the comedy springs from its characters rather than pop-culture references or lazy scatology.

While the movie is simultaneously a day-in-the-life farce, a cri de couer for working-class women and a testament to the strengths (and the limitations) of created families, it is more than anything an opportunity for the great Regina Hall to shine in an all-too-rare leading role.

Black Bag is a not-quite-quotidian spy movie. The stakes are the fate of a relationship, not the fate of the world, and all the pieces come together to make human drama even more interesting than potential apocalypse.

An adaptation of the Roald Dahl story, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is as much about the director’s love of arch humor, fourth-wall shattering, and aggressive art direction as it a redemption saga about a rich man who finds purpose in his life.

It’s a slower burn than those other two “Small Axe” entries, but it builds to a final scene between Boyega and Toussaint that’s quiet but shattering.

Pixar could easily retire this series with a clean sweep of films that have been lovely to look at and moving and funny to watch. But if they can maintain this level of wonderful, keep ‘em coming.

One of this generation’s most interesting filmmakers still has plenty to say and an impressive dexterity at saying it.

Overall, it’s an impressively mounted film, from the seamless visual effects to the score by Justin Hurwitz, which is flexible enough to accentuate both the film’s tension and its earthbound humanity, to the always exquisite editing by Tom Cross (“Whiplash”), which plays a key role in establishing the characters, the stakes and even the passage of time.

If Emma Thompson can’t make The Children Act...into something interesting and meaningful, then no one can. And she can’t.

You don’t have to love De Palma’s movies to find De Palma a fascinating look at a vital period of American film history, through the eyes of a controversial artist.

With its combination of workplace sitcom and social activism, Barbershop: The Next Cut feels more like a binge-viewing of multiple episodes of a TV series than a movie, but even on that level, it’s a show worth watching.

It handles real-life issues from a place of real compassion and understanding without reducing its characters to mere metaphor.

It’s a film as cuddly as Meimei’s panda form, but it’s also a perceptive examination of how one person’s coming-of-age has a ripple effect on those closest to them.

There are, of course, countless prisms through which to examine the events of 9/11 and their lingering impact, but Come From Away offers one that is stirring and funny, moving but never mawkish. It’s a story that provides hope without turning its eyes from despair.

One Night in Miami shows King to be a filmmaker who’s clearly interested in balancing a variety of literal and figurative textures.

The Post passes the trickiest tests of a historical drama: It makes us understand that decisions that have been validated by the lens of history were difficult ones to make in the moment, and it generates suspense over how all the pieces fell into place to make those decisions come to fruition.

Hardy might be past needing a star-making performance, but this is the kind of work that raises him to highest echelon of actors working in film today. He and Knight remind us that artists can astonish with the simplest of methods.

The Eras Tour spotlights Swift’s musicianship as well as her showmanship: the acoustic section, where she accompanies herself on guitar and piano, could have been the entire concert, if one could build a stadium tour out of such intimate moments, but the bigger-than-life stagecraft on display never overpowers the music.

It’s not just the CG that’s visually impressive here; “War” boasts some extraordinary set pieces.

Writer-director Rian Johnson assembles the makings of a great whodunnit for Knives Out and winds up making a good one. It’s a perfectly entertaining film, but its attributes and apparent ambitions make the results just a bit disappointing.

It’s a collective simmer of sight, sound, sweat, and sensation about fascinating, complex people pushed through their paces on and off the court.

A movie that feels like a series of beautifully and meticulously crafted tiles in a half-finished mosaic; you can admire the pieces but still come away feeling like you’ve been deprived of the whole.

The writing leaves some unanswered questions, which viewers may interpret either as frustrating or as a reflection of the protagonist, who finds himself rudderless when he loses his hearing. Either way, Ahmed’s performance goes a long way in holding the film together.

Certain Women gives us female characters who are smart and complicated and funny and imperfect, and it never hand-delivers a message regarding what we’re supposed to think about them.

Hou’s brand of reserve might not be for all audiences, but arthouse admirers of cinematic stillness will find themselves enraptured by this hypnotic tale.

The Northman is gory, muddy, hallucinatory — and intensely entertaining. An examination of the way that violence begets violence, and a study of how a life devoted to single-minded hatred and vengeance can lead to uncomfortable truths, this is a movie that lives up to every saga comic books and metal bands ever spun about the brutal conquerors of yore.